Calling It Quits Over Politics

I HAVE LOST a number of old friends late in life, and although this distresses me in a way, in another way it provides a sense of relief, as if having cleared the air, come clean, become honest.  the friends who insisted that Michelle Obama is a man, that Barack Obama was born in Kenya, and that wearing a face mask is harmful to one's health because it forces one to inhale one's own exhaled carbon monoxide,  terminated our relationship when I suggested that her views on the Obamas might be racially motivated, and that her views on mask wearing might have more to do with comfort and convenience than inhaling carbon monoxide, dioxide, or whichever. My loss, or maybe hers, her loss of sanity. About her assertions about the Obamas there wasn't a hint of uncertainty. She was merely stating facts. Nor did she provide attribution. She promised that her info did not come from Trump, whom she has supported for three years but abandoned during his last year in office, for whatever reason. From her there was no awe, no sense of amazement, of strangeness about her remarkable revelations. Shouldn't there have been? isn't the fact of Barack Obama fraudulently claiming to be from Hawaii, and Michelle fraudulently claiming to be a woman amazing, worthy of amazement? By failing to tell me her source of information, she retains credibility. Give me the source, and I can attack the source as unreliable. Without a source, the fact is so obvious that no source is needed. By showing no amazement, the assertions become mere facts, nothing to be amazed about, just plain facts. The soup is hot, the soup is cold. The Mississippi River flows into the Gulf of Mexico. Michelle Obama is a man. Ho hum. Clever technique, psychologically, but, alas, not quite clever enough for this old skeptic. Similarly, notice that of the millions of members of the "stop the steal" club, nary a one of them expresses the least bit of uncertainty, nor the slightest trace of evidence, and no attribution for the sensational claim. Nor any sense of amazement. To provide evidence allows the evidence to be examined and critiqued. To express amazement invites the idea that claiming the election was stolen from Trump is an amazing, unlikely idea. Ans questionable evidence, and all evidence is subject to examination, or any sense of amazement distracts and detracts from the fact which must be accepted without question, because any question demands answers. I lost another friend who tells me that Obama invented racism when he became president. He didn't tell me exactly how, nor did he seemed at all surprised by Obama's capacity to have such great influence, as one person, upon millions of people and their attitudes towards race. In retrospect, you can hardly blame him.

Doing the Right Wing Math

 SIXTY PERCENT of the American people are "white", thirteen percent black, a somewhat higher percentage are brown, and the rest are red and yellow, take your pick, name your color.The percentage of whites is declining, has been for decades, and will continue to do so, as white becomes one of many minorities, a plurality in an ethnically diverse culture.This is the essential problem for America's far right, their source of anger and discontent, their agony.Ten percent of white Americans are far right extremists, and around thirty percent more are garden variety conservatives, which means in sympathy with the far right. The big picture conservative community, primarily white but all colors included, is closely associated with fundamentalist evangelical Christianity, gun rights, anti-abortion rights, and anti-socialism, all of which put them at odds with a majority of the American people, who are more progressive and more secular.White supremacist racists are deeply embedded within the law enforcement and military professions, professions which have always been attractive to conservative  white racist patriotic types.Fully twenty percent of the participants in the Capitol insurrection were either active or former military, or active or former police. That says much not only about white supremacism and where to find it, but also support for Trump, and where to find it. The numbers all add up, and fall neatly into place, and for a clear pattern. Forty percent of Americans support(ed) Trump, throughout his presidency, and beyond, seventy percent of Republicans still, after several months, insist that the election was stolen, and perhaps one third of them still think the insurrection was justified, and wish it had succeeded. More alarming material for consideration. In broad but accurately descriptive terms, racism, xenophobia, white nationalism, christian white nationalism, hatred of cooperative economics, religious zealotry, are all fundamental, pervasive components of contemporary American economic, political, and social conservatism. Right wing extremism so permeates American conservative society that Donald Trump was not only elected president, but was broadly supported in his failed attempt to stage a coup and usurp the democratic political system to remain president. In modern America, mainstream conservatism is scarcely distinguishable from right wing christian white nationalism, from far right extremism. It is a movement perfectly to use illegal means and violent means to achieve its goals, which is the installation of a Christian ultra conservative theocracy in American government. the Republican party is among the most dangerous organizations in human as well as American history, and mainstream conservatism is the second greatest threat to American national security, behind climate change. For our national survival, both must be eliminated.

Comparing Apples to Oranges

 MEMBERS OF THE CULT OF TRUMP have twisted themselves into pretzels finding ways to avoid responsibility for, and Trump's responsibility for, the horrible violent insurrection at the nation's Capitol on January 6. they have failed. Trump, b originating the "big lie", and his followers, by embracing and repeating it, created the circumstances which led directly to the horrible event, and they are will will forever remain responsible for it. Trump, his supporters, and nobody else. Criminals and traitors, at the end of the day, as we like to say. They have stooped so low as to compare the insurrection to the looting and violence which took place at several Black Lives matter rallies last summer. Since all violence is deplorable, we deplore all violence. It should be noted that the BLM movement was fundamentally good, appropriate, well intentioned,  its purpose being of course to oppose and eliminate systemic racism in America. This obviously does not justify the violence which at times accompanied the demonstrations, even though said violence was the result of only a small number of poorly behaved miscreants. The insurrection, however, had no such noble origins. The entire "stop the steal" movement was, is, and shall forever remain a criminal act, a stain upon american history, the greatest lie ever perpetrated upon the country, great even than the lie that was told about dropping atomic bombs on japan, that the bombs were necessary. That not only Trump but millions of his followers embraced the stolen election like says much about the moral character of those who supported Trump, many of whom, reprehensibly, continue to do so. the violent attempt to reverse the outcome of the election and overthrow the duly elected government was nothing other than a criminal, treasonous act, and those who participated in it, and those who continue to insist it was justified are guilty of traitorous treason.  On the one hand, the BLM movement was and remains a noble enterprise, a worthy attempt to oppose a traditional evil in American society, and to set it right.  The insurrection was just the opposite; an event predicated upon a lie, a manifestation of pure evil, of a heinous attempt to subvert the democratic processes which make the United States a beacon of hope and greatness.  Donald Trump clearly revealed his criminal nature during his election campaign in 2016, and it was easy for anyone to see it and yet he was elected by tens of millions of morally and intellectually inferior Americans, the same inferior people who continue to support him even after his treasonous violent insurrection based upon his big lie. Shocking though it is at the sheer number of American citizens with such low standards of personal integrity, we at least now know that they exist, and we know who they are.

Coming Out Even, Or Maybe A Bit Ahead

 "All comes out even when the day is done, and more even still when all the days are done", said Voltaire, and whether this is true, it certainly sounds good. To my friend who for four years, through repeated impeachments, lies, and administrative and policy chaos insisted that Trump was the greatest president in American history, a verifiably false claim, I can now say:  actually Joe Biden is. every statement, every stroke of the pen, every appointment, every policy proposal promulgated by Biden in his first month in office has been exactly the prescription for national healing, health, and success, just, as we say, what the doctor ordered. Biden is filling his cabinet with proven, moderate to progressive professionals of the highest possible quality, rather than Trump's litany of billionaires and political hacks. Whereas Trump's executive orders were ludicrous, lunatic, and harmful to the country and the environment, every one of Biden's is a step forward in reversing the damage left behind by the malign Trump administration. Verily, happy days are here again. The contrasts between Trump and Biden are almost unfathomably enormous, but are perhaps best illustrated by their respective responses to the Covid 19 pandemic. Consider President Biden's remarks, the speech he gave to the American people on the occasion of the five hundred thousandth person in the United states to officially die from the virus, a number which a year ago was unthinkable, and, in some ways, still is. As he has before, Biden made reference to the empty chair at the family dinner table, to the brothers, sisters, fathers and mothers who will never again be seated there, and the emptiness their absence has created and will always create within the hearts and minds of those they left behind. He reminded us that he is well acquainted with horrible personal loss, as indeed he is, with the well known deaths of his wife, daughter in a car accident years ago, and the more recent loss of his son Beau to cancer. And yet, the new president found it within himself to comfort us, to encourage us, to urge us to greater feats of accomplishment and endurance.  Biden's inspiring words are remindful of Goethe's quote" "There is no situation which cannot be ennobled through achievement or endurance".No normal emotional person could possibly have been unmoved and uninspired by Biden's well chosen, beautiful, inspiring words. Contrast that to Trump, whose most inspiring, comforting words were "we have turned the corner". We have turned the corner. nothing about the suffering, the loss, the pain, and his compassion or felling towards it. Nothing, ever. We should be thankful, and most of us are, that for the first time in several years, we finally have a real human being in teh white House, with genuine concern for the welfare of others. We deserve that, if nothing else. we who patiently waited out trump finally got what we so richly deserve - a decent person as president. we came out even. maybe we even came out ahead.

Trumpers, Still Disinforming

 MY FRIEND, the Trump lover, said to me, thinking he had thus won the argument "What about all the ANTIFA riots last summer"? He war referring to those instances in which people at Black Lives matter protests were confronted by right wing white supremacists, and took them on. Naturally he left out the white supremacist part. As if those incidents were in any way comparable to Trump's insurrection at the Capitol. As if bad behavior can ever be justified by merely pointing to someone else's bad behavior. The tactic is, evidently, to change the subject or transfer responsibility for the insurrection, as Trump tried to do while it was ongoing. The people who attacked the Capitol acted on their won,, or they were leftists, or they were expressing free speech, or some such idiocy. Like Mitch McConnell said, Trump has not gotten away with anything, yet, and, if justice is served, will be convicted in federal court for treason, lined up, and shot. Or at least sent away for the remainder of his natural life. My friend wen ton that Trump was the greatest president in American history, and that the American people know it. that his approval rating had sunk to less than thirty percent by January 7 I chose not to mention. Why bother? My friend went on that he believes in climate change, that he believes the climate changes all the time. In fact it does not; it remains relatively unchanged for long periods of time, then suddenly lurches into a new phase, as it did around the year thirteen hundred, and again around 1850, when it emerged from the "little ice age". My frid of course thought himself quite clever, i could tell, by mentioning natural climate change and dismissing, again, the real thing, the human made variety, but as usual I was not impressed by his conservative nit witticisms. People like that always tell me how smart they think I am, then proceed to talk to me as if they think I'm stupid. The best tactic might be to present them with specific questions, such as: what do you think should be done about atmospheric warming, which is happening at an alarming rate? Just assume they know the science, and force them to act as if they do. Or, do you agree with Trump that windmills cause cancer? Who exactly do you believe was/is involved in the vast left wing conspiracy to steal the election from Trump, seeing as how the plan worked so very well? Or, if Obama had behaved exactly as Trump did after the election, of if Hillary had, what would your reaction have been? I want to h ear one of them explain in detail exactly how the election was stolen, and to explicitly express their approval of Trump's behavior. That will make their own character permanently engraved in the record.

Nationalizing Christian Bigotry

 CHRISTIAN NATIONALISM is, on the surface, an innocuous enough term. Devoutly patriotic, one might say. It seems to imply a combination of devotion to faith and love of country. deep religious devotion and patriotism are generally considered to be among the highest virtues. They combine church and state,  which the constitution mandates be kept separate, but are nonetheless usually placed in one special place together by American conservatives. In truth, the term "Christian nationalism" means much more than merely being religious and patriotic at the same time. it is a far right movement, in which the central belief is that special privilege should be given to white Christian conservatives who were born in the United States. It is a racist, religiously bigoted doctrine, inherently antithetical to liberalism, any religion or non religions other than Christianity, non whites, and those of foreign origin. In essence, it is the Ku Klux Klan by another, less pejorative name. Alarmingly, a high percentage, exactly what percentage remains unclear, of American evangelical fundamentalist christian embrace it, just at they in overwhelming numbers support Trump and believe that the election was stolen on behalf of the Democrats and Joe Biden. It is modern America's versions of fascism, modern America's version of the nineteen thirties Hitler movement in Germany. even more alarming is that it has already been in power, and resisted being voted out of power by staging an insurrection in an attempt to overthrow the government, and may come to power again, by legitimate electoral processes. The potent combination of religious fanaticism and political right wing extremism is especially concerning, for its potential for violence and coordinated resistance to progress. American Christians and conservatives see the United States becoming a country they do not like. The christian faith is declining in membership as a percentage of the general population, as teh baby boomer generation fades away and the millennials and post millennials emerge as much more secular humanist. Christian conservatism in American is a dying breed, although that fact is not yet widely recognized nor accepted.It will be. the rate of social change is staggering; in the last few decades homosexuality has gone from being illegal and punishable by imprisonment to being an accepted way of life, due to decades of social organization by gays and lesbians. White patriarchal society is a thing of the past, and ethnic diversity is now the norm. Humanity is globalized in all areas of life.Christian nationalism can be regarded as the dying gasp of a way of life going extinct, because that is exactly what it is.

Dealing With Limbaugh's Death, Decently

BILL O'REILLY informs us that it is indecent to trash Rush Limbaugh on the day of his death. Advice from a sexual predator on decency, we perhaps do not need. Are we permitted to trash a dead man the day after his death, or, if not, then when, pray tell, may we begin? We might want to bear in mind that trashing Rush Limbaugh involves, need involve nothing more than telling the truth.Limbaugh spend decades on the radio trashing good people who merely happened to disagree with him, spewing racism, misogyny, hatred of all types, especially directed at liberals, and telling a boundless number of lies.Arguably, Limbaugh was the single most potent force which turned the Republican to the extreme right, turned it into a hatred machine, and made it culturally possible for a reprobate like Donald Trump to become president. Trump, with his vicious slanderous attacks, racism, and constant barrage of lies, can be said to be somewhat of a Rush Limbaugh clone. Ruah Limbaugh harmed people. he harmed society, by fomenting anger and hatreds, by pitting one group against another, by encouraging his listeners to be aggressively hostile in their attitudes towards those with whom they disagree. Limbaugh denied the reality of climate change, calling it a "hoax" for years.When an influential person does this, we all are harmed, by our increased tendency as a society to take urgently needed action to save ourselves. In his final broadcasts he constantly railed against the election, echoing Trump's lie that it had been stolen. this is, in a sense, a fitting manner for Limbaugh to go out. In a hilarious incident, in one of his final shows he was ranting about ballots being carried out of a polling place in suitcases, screaming that "ballots are not carried in suitcases!" When a caller told him that they were not suitcases, but rather standard ballot boxes, rush suddenly got quiet, and quietly changed the subject. Rush Limbaugh, like Trump, was not the sort of man to admit his own mistakes, only those of thosew, whom he ridiculed when he corrected them. Limbaugh may be the only man in america who told more lies in a shorter period of time than Donald J. Trump, an impressive record for prevarication. if only he had lived long enough to witness Senator Ted Cruz sneaking off to Cancun with his family in the middle of the great blizzard and suffering in Texas.The deserved pounding Cruz took in the media Rush would likely have attributed tl liberal trouble making ather than justified public outrage at a political leader abandoning his state and his constituents in favor of his own immediate comfort and pleasure in the midst of a public disaster. If you were conservative, rush had your back; if not, he stabbed it.

Trump Tripping

 THE IMPEACHMENT TRIAL, although its outcome was predetermined, , has benefits nonetheless. It revealed much about the character of Donald Trump, the Republican party, the conservative movement, and Trump's notorious base of support among tens of millions of evangelical Christians That Trump is guilty of incitement to insurrection, and shall forever remain guilty, and shall be so judged by future historians is beyond dispute. NO rational person could dispute the fact that on January 6 Trump incited his mob rally to proceed to the Capitol, and to "fight like hell" for him. the rest, as we say, is history. It turns out that during the violence, Trump, like the rest of the country, was watching on television, and, unlike the rest of the country, or at least the non Trump supporters, was pleases with what he saw, the he totally approved o fit, reveled in it, enjoyed it. that he did nothing to stop it while it was happening is a further indictment, a good reason for Trump's conviction and prolonged incarceration, it not execution. That a good percentage of Trump's supporters, conservative Christian Republicans, continue to believe that the insurrection was warranted by a stolen election is an indictment on their character as well. Trump planned knew by watching the polls that he was likely to lose the election; he knew that as early as early summer, when his approval rating sank, and Biden took a commanding lead in all major polls. All his planning since that time, involving setting the stage for claiming that the election would bre stolen, months before it actually occurred, planning to motivate his many followers to take drastic, extreme, violent action in response to his impending election loss; it all becomes clear now, that the insurrection was the product not of a spontaneous misunderstanding, but of months of planning and preparation among Trump and his most extreme white supremacist supporters. Because of all this, because of all the corruption and criminal activity of which Trump is guilty, no decent American citizen should continue to support him now. He should be universally rejected and condemned by all decent Americans. And yet the Republican Senators, afraid of losing their support base of Trump supporters, have failed to convict him, and Trump's general support remains steady, as somewhere around thirty percent of America. those who still support him after all this have revealed their fundamental lack of morality and decency, and their unfitness for participation in civil society.

Preaching Positively

 I LIKE SERMONS which take the best things Jesus said, a sort of "greatest hits of Jesus", so to speak, and elaborate and expand upon them, turning them into sermon length messages relevant directly directly to current society. Fill them with logic and facts. Two of my favorite I have never heard a Christian minister sermonize: "go they way, sell whatsoever thous hast, and give unto the poor", and "render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's, and render unto God that which is God's. , and thou shalt have treasure in heaven." I honestly cannot remember ever hearing a single sermon devoted exclusively to either of those seminal sayings of Christ. Maybe I've just been unlucky and missed out; the number of sermons I have heard in total is not enormous, since I am only a sporadic church goer, and  not religious. Or, it may be that most Christian ministers and most congregations are conservatively capitalistic, and those messages in particular imply  a liberal, even socialistic approach, not exactly TEA party stuff. Jesus clearly embraced the doctrine of voluntary personal poverty, and said so. He was hard core when it came to redistributing wealth, and said so. He never said anything about the bad influences on people getting free money, and the need for the poor to work, he said "give it to them". Not exactly a republican message. Most Christians in America seem to be political, social, and economic conservatives. They want a free market, and small government uninvolved in most areas of life, except religious freedom and reproductive rights. Conservative Christians want a federal government in which the 'christian faith is official, in which the Christian faith is officially represented. Otherwise, they want to pay no taxes, and they want the government to stay out of their way. the most frequent sermon I have heard urges people to accept Jesus Christ as lord and savior, to wash away all your sins in the blood of the lamb. It begins to sound like a mix between a feudal land contract, and a Stephen King novel. Why not talk about the necessity of paying taxes, that we may all invest in society, contribute to the national good, and pool our money together for worthwhile projects like feeding the hungry and housing the homeless? Aren't such political endeavors compatible with the teachings of Jesus? Render unto Caesar. Jesus never said anything about loaning money to an impoverished person, and charging interest, or offering a starving man a job. he said, quite clearly, go thou way, and sell whatever thous hast, and give unto the poor.. sounds like a good sermon, or something that could be made into one...

Saving Friendships, Healing America

I NEEDED TO VISIT MY FRIEND. We,ve been good friends for thirty five years, and I hadn't seen him since before the election, and he's a big time Trumper. difficult situation, to say the least.  We talked for about half an hour,, and it was going great, when suddenly he started talking politics out of the blue, raising his voice. Bad idea. Very bad idea. It didn't go well, but I salvaged the situation, and the friendship, with tact. He said that in Arizona, "they" (Democrats?) won't let anybody see the ballots. That's all he wanted, to see the ballots. Facts which disprove this idiotic argument are too numerous to mention here, so I didn't even try to name one, tactfully. why bother? It is amazing how many millions of Americans have allowed themselves to become possessed by delusions, by false facts, lies. An alarming level of mass denial of reality. My friend also said, in essence, that Barack Obama invented racism, that it had either been eliminated or was under control or was "no problem" - I can't remember which, but all absurd - when Obama took office, and Obama resurrected racism. Why bother mentioning that it was tens of millions of right wing racist rednecks, and their reaction to Obama's election, which "brought back" racism. Ideas and beliefs like this clearly indicate the serious level of delusion and mental illness under Trump supporters, in their deep, dark disappointment and grief. Multiple delusions, shared by tens of millions of temporarily, we hope, mentally ill folks.White Christian conservative support of Trump clearly reveals their racism,  their hatred of Obama is more proof, while they deny it, of course, and blame it on the liberals, for talking about it. My friend, alas, is  a perfect example of suppressed racism, and transferring blame for racism to liberals. These people seem to have neither shame, class, nor intelligence. Knowing that my good friend the right winger has them frustrates me all the more. I have suggested to him that we simply not talk politics, and I obviously need to remind him that it is sufficient to simply accept our differences, and not discuss them. I might suggest that he stop ambushing me with politics in order to start an argument with me. That might work well for millions of American friendships. somewhere, somehow, however, we as a nation must discuss politics, for we the people supposedly govern this country. I asked my friend how much longer it will even matter whether the election was stolen.Will it still matter when Biden is out of office, and both he and Trump, and many of the rest of us, are dead? It helps, I think, to make right wingers answer specific questions, and for us progressives to be willing to do the same. What are their solutions to climate change? How would they have reacted if Obama had done exactly the same thing Trump did? I told him there was nothing poor Mike Pence could have done to reverse the election on January 6, and he refused to believe me.How do you deal with that, other than to ignore it?

Paying Mothers To Be Mothers, People To Be People

 THE COMMERCIAL BEGINS with two very pregnant people sitting side by side in airplane seats. you see them from the knees to the neck. The announcer informs you that there is a movement to classify pregnant people as "essential workers", and to put them on the public payroll, at something like twenty four hundred a month. Enough to make nearly anyone want to get pregnant. I was too shocked to pay attention to the rest of the ad. Granted, it takes a village, but do we really want to subsidize reproduction on  a planet with more than seven point five billion bodies, and counting? Multi millionaire mother to receive pregnancy stipend! The solution to that potential nightmare is of course means testing, which, upon further reflection, could be the solution to nearly everything else which ails our ailing free market economy. Free means tested money for the needy. Think about it; by guaranteeing that everybody is a consumer, demand explodes, as does production, distribution, sales, and societal prosperity, including for the rich. You might argue against paying poor people to breed like rabbits. Fine. Pay them to be people. Any given person, given sufficient opportunity to accumulate bad decisions, can reduce himself to poverty. the image comes to mind of Muhammed Ali walking down the street handing out twenties. Perhaps the imposition of a rule requiring part of the birth dividend be deposited in an untouchable account for the future use of the child. If memory serves, George McGovern ran for president on a platform plank calling for a guaranteed minimum income for all. that he lost in a landslide to Richard Nixon seems incredible. In the twenty twenty election Andrew Yang resurrected the same concept, and lost badly in the primaries,  again,surprisingly. Maybe our corporate masters have brainwashed us against sharing. Maybe we like to make our money the old fashioned way, by gambling for it in the stock market, ganging up with groups of investors and buying a bundle of Gamestock stock, artificially driving up the price, then cashing out before our co conspirators do. But let's face it. If we in the United States of Avarice are willing to even consider the notion of paying perfectly good public money to people for having babies, then we are just about willing to pay anybody for doing anything.

Worshiping Bad Behavior

 BY THE TIME I was eight I knew I was not, and would not become religious. I didn't change fundamentally over the next fifty seven years, although I became aware of my inherent religiosity, which manifests as a reverence for existence. To me religion, all religions, seem primitive, illogical, bizarre, inadequate, entirely emotional, fear based. All religions consider themselves perfect, and refuse to change and improve, or are at least highly resistant to it. And yet, the willingness to change and to improve are universally regarded as among an individuals's greatest virtues, of great importance to being a good person. Encouraging people not to question their beliefs is the hallmark of religion, and yet we are urged to do exactly that for our own intellectual education and personal growth. Religion teaches us to disapprove of anyone whose beliefs differ from ours, to be intolerant and narrow minded, and this is not the only form of bad behavior encouraged by religion. The Christian religion in particular strongly encourages us, indeed requires us to avoid, to disavow responsibility for our own mistakes and bad behavior. Christ died for our sins.We are offered the opportunity to avoid the consequences of and responsibility for our sins. We are required to do this to be a Christian. The opportunity is presented as blackmail. The price of ridding ourselves of our responsibility is that we must worship Christ as our lord and savior in return for his paying for our sins, for his taking on the burden of our sins. If we do not accept these terms, we are condemned, doomed to horrible eternal suffering. This arrangement is imposed on us by God, even He created the circumstances in which we sin, he made it impossible for anyone to totally avoid sin and to live a perfect sin free life, and, since he is omnipotent, he has the power to simply forgive our sins without requiring that Christ be tortured to death, without requiring that we worship as our lord and savior the victim of the torturous death in order to avoid responsibility for our own actions. The only consolation to this bizarre arrangement is that is exists only within the fertile human imagination.Many ancient, primitive religions, fertility cults, believed in offering blood sacrifices to appease angry uncooperative Gods, to help agricultural production. Among them was Christianity, which was not called "Christianity" for several centuries. Human sacrifice was common. Isaac got lucky at the last moment when god, convinced of Abraham's worshipful sincerity, settled for a sheep. That any such religion widely endures in the twenty first century is remarkable, impressive, and wholly anachronistic, considering centuries of advances in human understanding of natural causation. Even more remarkable would be that any of them endure into the twenty second century.

Lying and Whining On the Right

 RIGHT WING EXTREMIST evangelical Christian self assured morally superior U.S. Senator Josh Hawley became a social media sensation when he raised his clenched fist above his handsome head, approvingly power saluting Donald Trump's insurrectionist mob only  moments before it stormed and ransacked the nation's Capitol building. Shortly after Hawley's chosen people completed their works of destruction, Hawley stood and objected on the restored order floor of the Senate to the democratic process,by objecting to the duly authorized electoral process in a state far from his own constituency. Widespread criticism ensued, of the sort which, when levied against conservatives and their behavior, results on the mainstream media being accused of "fake news", and the shell shocked Senator ran full speed ahead to his comfort zone, right wing Christian radio, for comfort. There he commenced whining about what evangelical Christians most often whine about; about being relentlessly attacked because of his true faith in the one true religion, and his courage in saying so. The terrible holocaust in American Christianity, in which two thirds of the American people, the devout, are under constant assault by the one third minority, with their encroaching secularism. Your heart goes out to the two hundred and fifty million Christians, prevented from worshiping as they wish by this powerful, aggressive anti-religious minority. You truly pity them, with mobs of secularists blocking entrance to churches all across freedom's land. Hawley insultingly referred to some imaginary leftist "woke mob" coming after him, in one sentence abusing good grammar and the truth. "Woke" is a verb", the adjective form is "awakened". There is no leftist mob anywhere in sight. The extreme right has a monopoly of mob mentality, clearly indicated by events at the Capitol. The extreme right wing Trump evangelical mob made its point ad the Capitol, with the approval of the traitorous inciter Trump, and his loyal accomplice, the fist pumping fellow insurrectionist Senator Hawley. Senator Hawley says that he has a duty to represent his constituents by showing his true faith; are all of his constituents right wing Christian extremists mobsters with a flair for violence? The evangelical Christian right wants to impose its aggressive religion upon the secular nation, while accusing the secular civic nation of attacking religious freedom, the trademark tactic of mobster, playing the victim. they attack basic American democracy in the name of a defeated demagogue, trying to steal an election they lost by a large margin. Typical behavior for a sanctimonious religious mobster.

Normalizing Lunacy

 CONSIDERING THAT  there are five hundred an thirty five members of Congress, and considering the nature of the American electorate, it should hardly seem surprising that the occasional nut case ascends to  a position of political leadership atop Capitol hill. The newest nut case, Marjorie Taylor Green, has expressed a desire to kill Democrats, has expressed admiration for members of Q-Anon, believes that many of the mass murders in America's schools did not happen, but were fake news, has expressed anti-Semitism, and fully embraces the big lie, that the election was stolen from Trump. that should add up to enough to get her confined to a mental institution, but not elected to Congress. Nonetheless, Republicans in general seem good to go with it. The lady is merely expressing her constitutional right of free speech.The House minority leader says that he had a word with her,  in private, and that's that.No word on what the word was. Probably advice to tone down her truth telling around those radical intolerant Democrats. It is hard not to notice that Marjorie's lunacy is not at all out of step with mainstream conservative republican thought, and with the Trump crowd. Bear in mind that over one third of Republicans believe that storming the Capitol was a good idea, and that two thirds of them believe that the election was actually stolen from Trump. The Republican party is where nut cases come home to roost. the Republican party is stark, raving mad, and getting worse by the day. It is entirely predictable that this delusional woman will not only be allowed to keep her seat in Congress, will not be expelled, but that she will be allowed to rise to a position of leadership with in the Goofy Old Party, and will perhaps even become the front runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.Her views are the views of most mainstream conservative Republicans. She has issued no apology for her bad behavior, expressed no regrets, and cannot be expected to do so.  The republican party, the conservative movement, and the Christian support base for Donald Trump is becoming more extremist, more violent, more unhinged every day. Each time a Democrat is elected president, America's conservatives become irrational. They formed the citizen militia movement when Clinton was elected, the Tea party when Obama was elected, with their guns, Bibles, and demands for lower taxes for the wealthy and refusal to acknowledge climate change, and now its Biden's turn, and the maniacs are even now beginning to manifest, once again.

Making Bad Choices

 IF THE PRESIDENT od the United States can lose an election by a landslide, immediately, repeatedly and falsely claim, without any evidence to support it, that the election was stolen from him, then tell thousands of angry supporters to go to the Capitol and fight for him, and suffer no consequences when they invade, ransack, and seize control of the Capitol building while killing several people, then anybody in America can yell "fire!" in a crowded theater, and not be held responsible for the consequences when several people are trampled and killed in the ensuing stampede. Trump will not be convicted in his impeachment trial, only because republicans will claim, falsely, that the process in unconstitutional, and will avoid their duty to do justice. In fact,  it is constitutional, according to precedent.The similarities, psychologically, between Trump and his supporters and Hitler and his are alarmingly evident. A right wing extremist populist demagogue convinces his sycophantic angry supporters that he alone can lead them backward in time to some imaginary time when the country was truly great, far greater than now in its diminished condition.The homeland's problems,all of them, are caused by certain enemies of the state, foreign and domestic.The leader and his followers must confront and defeat these enemies. The enemies include certain types of foreigners, foreigners with the wrong religion, skin color, or language.Domestic enemies include the news media, liberals, socialists, minorities; they could be almost anyone.Racism and xenophobia underscore,in one subtle form or another, all the words, actions, and beliefs of the great leader and his followers. Their cause becomes their crusade, and their crusade their cause.What happens to the crusade and to those who pursue it when the leader has been vanquished by the opposition? History is the best solution, the final solution  Forever rolling into the future, society is given the opportunity to reflect upon and to appraise its past decisions and actions. We are given the opportunity to correct our past mistakes, rather than repeat them. Was it a mistake to elect and support a president who stole children from their parents, encouraged xenophobic nationalism, pursued an isolationist foreign policy, persistently lied to the American people, and falsely claimed that his reelection was stolen from him, inciting a riot which killed people? History will decide, for those of us who haven't already.

Vaccinating Properly; Sharing

LAST  AUGUST, when the Russians announced they had a vaccine, nobody took them seriously, certainly nobody in the United States.Some sneaky Russian trick, must be.The vaccine didn't come from an American corporation, couldn't be any good.Then the British did a study, and found that it works over ninety percent of the time, about as good as any American vaccine to date. The Russians proceeded to vaccinate their people with it, which is ongoing, and they started four months ahead of the Americans. The Sputnik Vee vaccine, like like the original Sputnik satellite, flew ahead of the Americans. Wouldn't it have been wonderful if an American vaccine had been available on August tenth, like the Russian one was, instead of four months later? The thought enters the mind that with a little international cooperation to augment good old fashioned American corporate capitalism the whole world could have begun vaccinating the global population before labor Day. All over the world, in many countries, scientists and corporations, with government assistance, have been developing vaccines. What if the first oen to be developed , tested, and proven any where had been licensed to many countries, and mass manufacturing had begun, and then, the same process for the second one developed, and the third, and so forth, with every country manufacturing everyone's version of the vaccine, a massive cooperative effort to get as many dose of as many vaccines to the world's population as quickly as possible? What would have happened is that billions of doses of effective vaccines would have been available for international distribution before the end of twenty twenty, that's what. All over the world, on every continent, even of the continent of Africa, where Donald Trump's "shit hole" countries" await the vaccine, vaccines could have been going into the arms of hundreds of millions of people fare earlier, with simple, basic human cooperation. What we have instead is vaccine nationalism, and vaccine corporate proprietary profit motive, vaccine competition and stinginess. And the place where corporate proprietary capitalism, for profit only, has reared its ugly head the most, as you might have guessed, is in the good old United States of Avarice, the land of the almighty profit motive, where the almighty dollar and the frenetic quest for profit trumps all other considerations. Both the Pfizer and teh Moderna vaccines should have been manufactured by each other, should have been manufactured in mass quantities by many many other companies and facilities, but heaven forbid that we should do any real sharing and cooperation in the land of the almighty dollar.

Suddenly Wanting To Heal

 REPUBLICANS who never gave a moment's thought to bipartisanship, national healing, or fiscal responsibility during the Trump administration who forged straight ahead with their partisan agenda without any consideration for opposing points of view, now suddenly have caught the spirit of bipartisanship and fiscal restraint. A truly amazing transformation. Into the white House paraded a gang of ten,notably ten sufficiently moderate Republicans to consider it worthwhile to respect and communicate with a Democratic president. They never seemed to think it worthwhile to do such things with Barack Obama, but of course, he was black. The day Obama was sworn in, congressional Republicans swore they would devote themselves to making him a one term president, and would automatically oppose everything he tried to do, without exception. That plan backfired, and similar plans they likely harbored against Biden they prudently have decided to keep to themselves. It is not difficult to recall the level of willingness of Republicans to work with Democrats in nominating and confirming one last Supreme Court justice , an ultra right winger, while Trump was still president; there was no willingness at all. Now that the are in the minority and the American people, local and state governments, individuals, and small businesses alike are in a deep state of devastation economically, here come the Repubs, wanting to dicker over details, wanting to negotiate with Biden, wanting to "save money".One in seven American families cannot afford to feed itself during the worst pandemic in a hundred years, and the good old G.O.P. wants to save money. Local governments cannot afford to pay first responders, and sate governments cannot afford to maintain essential services due to the lack of tax revenue, and yet the GOP wants to save money at the federal level, when the feds are already over twenty five trillion in debt. It will be interesting to see how compromising Biden is willing to be, because he does not have to compromise at all, and, truth be told, it is easy to hope that he tells the G.O.P. to walk out the door, and don't let it hit them on the backside. oiden has all the trump cards' majorities, albeit slim ones in both houses, and a high approval rating among the American people.Let's try this, and see what happens. Let's put both the Republican and the Democratic relief bill to a vote in Congress, and to a vote among the American people. May the best plan win, and the appropriate party reap the benefit of popular support.

Brainstorming, Making choices

 A FRIEND OF MINE  and I spent the entire Trump administration brainstorming, trying to figure out a way to get rid of Trump. I turned into a sort of competition, and became quite creative. some of our ideas were, to say the least, a bit far fetched, but, as we say, desperate circumstances require desperate solutions. when impeachment didn't work, we knew we were licked, and would have to be content to wait for our chance to git the job done at the ballot box. That worked. One week into the Biden administration I realized that Joe Biden is the greatest president in American history. My friend totally agreed, agreed that every one of Biden's executive orders was right on the mark, a step forward in bringing the country back from destitution, with the exception that he didn't like the cancelling of the Keystone pipeline. He said he didn't want to pay four dollars a gallon for gas. rather than to try to convince him that cancelling the pipeline would not result in four dollar gasoline, that it wouldn't have nearly that much impact on the oil market, I tried a different approach. There are far more important choices confronting us all than how much we want to pay for gasoline, I explained. We have to choose whether or not to convert from a carbon based fossil fuel economy to a clean energy carbon free economy, for one. We have to decide whether to fight climate change, whether to try to save the planet, literally, for future generations. These choices confront us, and really they are all varieties of the same choices, whether or not we want to deal with them, they are there, right in front of us. And whatever choice we make, whether to fight climate change by converting to clean energy, we will make the choice together, as a single unit, the entire human species acting as one entity.We will all share the responsibility and we will all share in the consequences of whatever choice we make. My friend will not be alone in paying for expensive gasoline, and my friend will not be alone in experiencing climate change over the next few years. nor will he be alone is experiencing an improving environment, a climate returning to normal, and in knowing that he is giving future generations a healthier world  for their well being should we choose to fight climate change. I reminded him the cost will be high for everyone, and that the benefits will be shared by everyone. Only some billionaire bankers and money managers will benefit, short term, for not choosing a clean energy future. But the benefits of a cleaner, healthier future will be shared by in in a renewed prosperity which comes with a growing new industry, clean energy, and which comes with a world becoming healthier, day by day. He agreed.